The invention concerns a probe holder, which can be connected to a probe holder plate of a prober. This probe holder plate includes a manipulator with a base surface, a probe arm receptacle and adjustment devices. The probe holder also includes a probe arm and a probe needle that can contact a substrate being tested. The probe arm then has a longitudinal extent between a first and a second end and is fastened with the first end to the probe arm receptacle. The probe arm accommodates the probe needle on the second end. The probe arm receptacle is then adjustable in a z-direction running perpendicular to the base surface, an x-direction running perpendicular to the z-direction and parallel to the longitudinal extent of the probe arm and in a y-direction, both perpendicular to the z-direction and perpendicular to the y-direction by means of the adjustment device.
The invention pertains to those probe holders that can be used on so-called probers. Prober is subsequently understood to mean a test device that tests electrical functions of substrates, having a probe holder plate, on which the probe holder can be mounted and locked. The probe holder plate then has a passage opening to the substrate lying beneath the probe holder plate, through which the probe arms pass.
Such probe holders are known, which are mounted on the probe holder plate and can be connected to it after an adjustment. A vacuum suction device is then arranged beneath the base surface, for example.
It is possible, by means of several of these probe holders, to set probe needles according to a pattern of contacts on the substrates being tested, for example, semiconductor components. The semiconductor components are then tested in the wafer structure, so that each semiconductor component, which has the same contact pattern, can be brought beneath the contact needles and placed in contact with them in succession.
A shortcoming is then that the number of probe holders on the probe holder plate is limited by the dimensions of the manipulator.
It is now common to test not only contacts on substrates in semiconductor technology, but also scribing pits between the semiconductor components for test purposes. For this purpose a number of contact islands are arranged in the scribing pits, which help evaluate process parameters, for instance. The cost to set up a test structure with ordinary probe holders is connected with intolerably high expense.